Bardon House

Up until 1917 when Sacred Heart church was built and 1923 when St Finbarr’s church was opened, people of the Bardon area would have had to attend Mass at St Brigid’s, Red Hill. Then, in 1923 Archbishop Duhig purchased “Bardon House” and the surrounding land. This beautiful home was built in 1864 by Joshua Jeays. Mr. Jeays was a prominent builder, architect and politician. The house was named “Bardon” at the request of Jeays’ wife who likened the rolling hills of the western suburbs to Bardon Hill in Leicestershire. The name incidentally, is derived from the Old English “Beorg-dun” meaning barren hill. The surrounding suburb was named Bardon in 1926.

The house was built of rough sandstone called Woogaroo Stone which was quarried near to the site of Wolston Park Hospital, roofed with shingles and featuring gables, casement windows and chimneys in the style of an old English manor house. After the Jeays, “Bardon House” was home to Sir Charles Lilley, Attorney General and Premier during the late 1860s. After Sir Charles’ death in 1897, a succession of notable Queenslanders made “Bardon House” their home.

By the time Archbishop Duhig purchased the property, the large estate on which it originally stood had long been divided up and sold, along with “The Drive” that had led to the front entrance. By that year of 1923, the area had become part of the growing suburb of Bardon.

In 1925, Bardon was made a separate parish, the 38th parish of the Archdiocese and the first Mass was celebrated in “Bardon House” by Mons. Lee of Rosalie Parish. The first Parish Priest was Fr Maxwell Irvine. He was also the chaplain to Stuartholme Convent and was thus kept very fit walking from “Bardon House”, where he lived, to Stuartholme to say morning Mass.

In 1938 Archbishop Duhig decided to establish a school to cater for the growing Catholic community in the Bardon district and he invited the Franciscan Sisters to staff the school. Eventually it was decided that “Bardon House” would be suitable for the foundation, and, utilising the verandah for classrooms, it welcomed the first students in 1939.

Over the next 75 years, “Bardon House” served as a convent, classrooms, school administration and music rooms.